As of January 7, 2011, USCIS has receipted approximately 58,700 H-1B cap-subject petitions. Additionally, it has receipted 20,000 H-1B petitions for foreign nationals with advanced degrees. Federal law exempts the first 20,000 H-1B petitions filed for foreign nationals who have obtained US masters or higher degrees from the 65,000 overall H-1B cap.
The newest technology in the U.S. government’s effort to improve border security – radio frequency identification devices, or RFID – is being testing with a pilot program at a border crossing in El Paso, Texas.
The 90-day program allows travelers who have approved RFID documents to cross the El Paso/Mexico border through two special RFID-only lanes. Officials say that traveling across a border with RFID documents is faster and more efficient than traveling with traditional documentation. The estimate is that wait times are approximately 25 percent shorter with RFID.
Travelers passing through one of the new lanes must first hold their RFID documents up near the windows of the vehicle on the driver’s side. A machine scans the microchips inside of them and transmits the information – which includes the driver’s name, age, sex and address – to a U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer in a booth. The process is significantly quicker because an officer does not have to manually input the travelers’ information into the computer.
RFID documents became mandatory for all U.S. and Canadian citizens over the age of 16 crossing into the United Sates as a result of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative which went into effect in June of 2009. Available documents include U.S. passport cards, Legal Permanent Resident “green card” cards, Border Crossing Cards and most new passports. Some states also offer RFID enabled “enhanced” driver’s licenses.
Officials say WHTI compliant RFID documents will not only cut down crossing time, but also protect the U.S. from terrorism. WHTI was signed into law after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and is a part of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act. Because RFID information is more difficult to replicate, officials expect WHTI to curb fraudulent documents.
The El Paso “Ready Lanes” will be open from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily and are the first in the U.S. to be open only to travelers with RFID documents. U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers have been distributing fliers to travelers and posting large signs at borders informing them of the new options.
Many expect the program to become more widespread if the El Paso program is successful and cuts down wait times while preventing fraudulent crossings.
Stewart Rabinowitz is President of Rabinowitz & Rabinowitz, P.C. Mr. Rabinowitz is Board Certified in Immigration and Nationality Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. To contact a Dallas immigration lawyer or Dallas immigration attorney visit Rabinowitzrabinowitz.com
As the U.S government increases security measures along the border to Mexico, smuggling goods and people across is becoming more expensive.
The Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Immigration Statistics recently completed a study that found that for every 10 percent increase in combined border enforcement employee hours, smuggling costs rise between 2.5 to 3.8 percent.
This is good news for the DHS, which seeks to shut down the illegal movement of people and goods across the U.S. borders. Higher costs equate to more risk for smugglers, which means that they may attempt to make fewer illegal shipments across the border. It may also decrease the gross amount of goods and people that smugglers can attempt to ship across the border simply owing to the costs involved.
“A rise in smuggling costs could indicate that enforcement measures are making it more difficult and costly for smugglers to successfully get illegal migrants across the border,” the report said.
Smugglers may see these increased costs for some time. The U.S. government has increased border security spending substantially in recent years. Discretionary spending for border security was $6.3 billion in 2007. That number jumped to $7.9 billion in 2008, $9.8 billion in 2009 and $10.1 billion in 2010. The Obama administration cut funding for border security in the 2011 budget, down to $9.8 billion. This is still a 55 percent increase over the 2007 budget.
The degree to which funding increases actually help border security has been an issue of considerable debate. The study is a boon for politicians and policymakers who are proponents of increased border security funding. It is the first time that researchers have been able to document that increased security spending leads to decreased illegal activities and smuggling.
The report also suggests that border employee increases on the border with Mexico from 2006 to 2008 accounted for all of the increased smuggling costs, while increased enforcement accounted for about half of the increased smuggling costs between 2004 and 2008.
Stewart Rabinowitz is President of Rabinowitz & Rabinowitz, P.C. Mr. Rabinowitz is Board Certified in Immigration and Nationality Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. To contact a Dallas immigration lawyer or Dallas immigration attorney visit Rabinowitzrabinowitz.com
Hundreds of thousands of children across the United States are in foster care and millions more across the world are looking for loving families to take them in.
Special Advisor for Children’s Issues Ambassador Susan Jacobs kicked off National Adoption Month on Nov. 1. Every year, during the month of November, the U.S. government calls special attention to the millions of children who are searching for families all across the world.
“Last year alone, Americans adopted over 100,000 children domestically and about 11,000 children from overseas. This is a testament to the generosity of the American people,” Jacobs said. “The U.S. government is committed to promoting stability for children. We support the desire of American families to provide for children in need of a permanent family through adoption.”
International adoptions can be difficult due to the sheer amount of paperwork involved and the costs of first visiting the child or children to be adopted and then transporting them home.
The process is further compounded after cases like last June, where a 7-year-old Russian boy adopted by a U.S. couple was sent on a one-way flight to Moscow with a note saying that he was “psychopathic.” Russia mulled an adoption ban with the U.S. after the incident, and is still threatening to cease all adoptions unless the two countries can sign an agreement to guarantee rights for adopted children.
Ambassador Jones reflected upon the importance of strong diplomatic relationships between countries in order for international adoptions to be successful.
“Our work on behalf of children through intercountry adoption requires strong, collaborative partnerships between the United States, foreign governments, and nongovernmental organizations,” she said. She then announced that Ireland and Kazakhstan joined the Hague Convention, which helps protect against fraud and abuse as it relates to international adoptions.
International adoptions differ greatly depending on whether the child is a citizen of a Hague country or a non-Hague country. Hague countries required potential adoptive parents to complete their documentation before the adoption process begins. They may not contact anyone who knows the child at this time. People adopting from non-Hague countries can begin their documentation at any time. The only stipulation is that the child must remain in his or her home country until the process is complete.
One adoption agency broke this rule in early 2010 when it brought 13 Haitian children to the United States after an earthquake devastated the country. The children had not been placed with a family and some had not even been placed up for adoption by their parents. Ambassador Jones addressed this in her speech.
“We sent a team down there to meet with the Haitian officials and with the parents of these children, and we expect that these cases will be resolved very soon,” she said.
Stewart Rabinowitz is President of Rabinowitz & Rabinowitz, P.C. Mr. Rabinowitz is Board Certified in Immigration and Nationality Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. To contact a Dallas immigration lawyer or Dallas immigration attorney visit Rabinowitzrabinowitz.com
On November 18, 2010, and in an effort to make the visa application process more convenient for all Indians, the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi and Consulates General in Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and Hyderabad now accept visa applications from across India at all visa facilities, regardless of the applicant’s home address or city of residence. The goal of this change is to facilitate legitimate travel to the United States and to best capture the dynamism of India’s growth across the nation. The U.S. Embassy also announced a re-organization of U.S. consular districts throughout India. Said U.S. Ambassador to India Timothy J. Roemer, “With these changes, we believe our Consulates General and our Embassy in New Delhi will be even better positioned to support and serve Indian visa applicants, as well as American citizens and businesses throughout India.”
The state of Arizona is once again at the center of the immigration debate as it defends the controversial SB1070 in federal court.
At the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco in early November, representatives from Arizona argued that some of the stricter portions of the law should be reinstated after a judge blocked them in July.
SB1070 allows law enforcement officers to check a person for identification if they suspect he or she is in the country illegally. Opponents of the law contend that it encourages racial profiling and subjects people to unlawful searches and interrogations when they have not obviously committed a crime. U.S. District Court Judge Susan Bolton essentially agreed with this claim when she blocked parts of the law in July, saying, “Race, alienage, or national origin discrimination was a motivating factor in the enactment of SB1070.”
She said that while Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer was correct in pointing out that while the plaintiffs arguing against the law say that it will harm them in the future, but has not harmed them yet, “the threat of future harm is sufficiently imminent.”
Judge Bolton did rule in favor of Brewer’s arguments in several cases, including a First Amendment claim against the bill and an argument that a driver’s license might not be proof enough of U.S. citizenship.
In federal appeals court this month, Arizona representatives sought to overturn this ruling. Arizona’s lawyer, John Bouma, argued that Arizona is trying to curb a federal problem by stopping the flow of undocumented immigrants – a task that he said the federal government is not sufficiently tackling.
An appeals judge questioned whether it was within a state’s right to question if the federal government is doing a sufficient job of enforcing a law, and then to enforce those laws itself if it did find the federal government was lacking. “For instance, if I don’t pay my income tax to the federal government, can California come along and sue me for not paying my income taxes?” the judge asked.
There is no timetable for when the Ninth Circuit will complete its ruling, but Gov. Brewer has said that she will appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court if the court does not appeal in favor of the bill.
Stewart Rabinowitz is President of Rabinowitz & Rabinowitz, P.C. Mr. Rabinowitz is Board Certified in Immigration and Nationality Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. To contact a Dallas immigration lawyer or Dallas immigration attorney visit Rabinowitzrabinowitz.com
In the days and weeks before the 2010 midterm elections, pundits, politicians and reporters investigated the ways in which minority voters could affect each race. However, they may have overlooked an increasingly large bloc of voters – the New Americans.
The New Americans, a loosely defined group that includes naturalized U.S. citizens as well as the U.S.-born children of immigrants whose parents came from Latin American and Asia after 1965, are quickly gaining a powerful clout in the voting booths. More in tune with their families’ past than the rest of America, New Americans are largely sensitive to immigration law and immigration reform. They turn out in droves against politicians who use anti-immigrant rhetoric, much more so than the people who support that rhetoric.
A recent Immigration Policy Center special report found that New Americans counted for 10.2 percent of all registered voters in 2008, which was a 101.5 percent increase from 1996. Similarly, Latinos and Asians accounted for 10.7 percent of all registered voters in 2008, a 79.4 percent increase from 1996.
These growing blocs of largely pro-immigration voters hold a tremendous influence in key states across the U.S. In Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, Texas and Virginia, registered New American voters exceed the margin of votes between candidates in the 2008 presidential elections. In theory, this means that whichever candidate gains the favor of the New American vote will win the election. Including the Latino and Asian voters not part of the New American bloc adds Colorado, Hawaii and New Mexico to the list.
New American voters, and specifically Latino voters, are widely influenced by a candidate’s stance on immigration. LatinoMetrics, an information tracker for economists, brand marketers, news and media organizations and policy makers, conducted a poll that found one out of every four Latino voters cite immigration as the top issue in the U.S. and eight out of 10 Latino voters said that immigration reform is “of extreme importance.” A similar poll conducted by Dr. Ricardo Ramirez from the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials found that 27 percent of Latino voters said immigration was their No. 1 concern when deciding who to vote for.
Understanding the needs and desires of New Americans can make or break a candidate in key battleground states such as Florida, Nevada and New Mexico. Immigrants to the United States are a political force to be reckoned with, and politicians must take heed of their power if they wish to be successful in future elections.
Stewart Rabinowitz is President of Rabinowitz & Rabinowitz, P.C. Mr. Rabinowitz is Board Certified in Immigration and Nationality Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. To contact a Dallas immigration lawyer or Dallas immigration attorney visit Rabinowitzrabinowitz.com
Ruiz-Diaz v. USA, a recent case permitting concurrent filings for religious workers, has been reversed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
On Aug. 20, a three judge panel on the Ninth Circuit reversed and remanded for further proceedings the district court’s decision (2009 WL 799683) allowing religious workers to file their adjustment of status applications concurrently with the organizations’ employment based immigrant visa petitions. Ruiz-Diaz v. USA, No. 09-35734 (9th Cir. August 20, 2010).
The court only considered the statutory construction argument, so the panel remanded to the district court for consideration of plaintiffs’ causes of action under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the U.S. Constitution.
The injunction requiring the agency to accept concurrent filings was vacated, but the order doing so will not take effect until mandate issues, probably around Oct. 11. Therefore, those wishing to file concurrent adjustment of status applications should do so before that date. The injunction also precluded USCIS from relying on unlawful status, presence, or employment that was accrued as a consequence of the challenged regulation barring concurrent filing for religious workers.
Plaintiffs will seek an extension of those provisions to protect class members during the pendency of the ongoing litigation. Class members with pending adjustment of status applications that would be harmed were this provision to end should contact class counsel.
Because of the remand to district court for further proceedings, plaintiffs’ counsel may request information from religious organizations, religious workers, or their counsel, who may be affected by the Ninth Circuit order.
Gabriel Ruiz-Diaz represents a class of alien beneficiaries of special immigrant religious worker visa petitions, and organizations that employ religious workers who maintained that the regulation was invalid under the statute.
The Ninth Circuit attacked the statute, applying Chevron’s two-step analysis (Chevron, USA, Inc. v. Natural Res. Def. Council, Inc, 467 U.S. 837, 1984), concluding that the statute is silent on the timing of visa petitions and applications for adjustment of status. Congress conferred discretion on the Attorney General to devise regulations to implement § 1255(a), and could not say that the agency’s interpretation in 8 C.F.R. § 245.2 (a)(2) (i) (B) is arbitrary, capricious, or manifestly contrary to the statute. The decision stated in part, “This being so, we reverse the judgment and vacate the injunction.”
Stewart Rabinowitz is President of Rabinowitz & Rabinowitz, P.C. Mr. Rabinowitz is Board Certified in Immigration and Nationality Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. To contact a Dallas immigration lawyer or Dallas immigration attorney visit Rabinowitzrabinowitz.com
In a Memorandum directed to the Secretary of State on October 8, 2010, President Obama authorized the admission to the US of up to 80,000 refugees based on humanitarian concerns and US national interests. Regional allocations are as follows: Africa: 15,000, East Asia: 19,000, Europe and Central Asia: 2,000, Latin America/Caribbean: 5,500, Near East/South Asia: 35,500, Unallocated Reserve: 3,000.
With Immigration Court asylum denials reaching an all-time low – the lowest level in a quarter of a century according to FY 2010 results – data shows that immigration judges are declining fewer requests for asylum.
Recent Justice Department data show that immigration judges are declining substantially fewer requests for asylum. Denial rates have reached the lowest level in the last quarter of a century according to a new analysis by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC).
Twenty-five years ago, in FY 1986, almost nine out of ten (89 percent) of the asylum requests in the Immigration Courts were denied. While the annual rates have gone up and down during the ensuing years, only half (50 percent) of the requests were denied during the first nine months of FY 2010 – a record low.
The denial rate for asylum requests in Immigration Court has been steadily declining since the mid-nineties and is projected to fall again in FY 2010. In FY 1986 almost nine out of ten requests (89 percent) were denied. Five years ago slightly more than six out of ten requests (62 percent) were denied. So far this year, it has dropped further so that only five out of every ten (50 percent) of asylum requests are being denied.
The growing success of asylum seekers is partly attributable to increases in the proportion that obtains legal representation. Having legal representation appears to have a major impact on outcome. During FY 2010, for example, only 11 percent of those without legal representation were granted asylum; with legal representation the success rate rose to 54 percent. It must be noted, though, that the number of those seeking asylum in court proceedings has fallen.
These and many other finding have emerged in the fifth annual report of TRAC’s monitoring series on Asylum Decision in the Immigration Courts. The reports are based upon hundreds of thousands of case-by-case asylum records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act from the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR). The records cover asylum decisions for the last quarter century, and are current through June 21 of this year.
The 2010 reports on each individual Immigration Judge, with year-by-year denial rates and current comparative rankings subject to the detailed listing.
Stewart Rabinowitz is President of Rabinowitz & Rabinowitz, P.C. Mr. Rabinowitz is Board Certified in Immigration and Nationality Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. To contact a Dallas immigration lawyer or Dallas immigration attorney visit Rabinowitzrabinowitz.com
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